Monday, October 19, 2015

I have contributed unreleased music to a DIY haunted house that is being built by my friend Brian Klein.
There is a great deal of unreleased material of mine happening. I may also act in said haunted house, if time prevails. More information as it's available.

I have also contributed a reading of an Edgar Allen Poe story to the Undressing Underground Podcast (Edgar Allen Poecast). I'm told it will air on October 27th.

ALSO, Heathen Harvest has just reviewed the collaboration with Bryan Lewis Saunders. It is reviewed by Jacob DeRaadt, who performs under the name "Sterile Garden". HH is getting to have an all-star cast of sorts, for reviewers on experimental music. One thing though, I was the one reading BLS's transcript upon waking near the end of Side B there, but otherwise the review is golden. Thanks HH!!

Breathing is one of the most metaphorically loaded sounds in the human audial repertoire. The connotations are scattered throughout various psychological/physiological states: sexual activity, heavy physical labor, asthma/emphysema, the experience of focusing on one’s own breath cycle during meditation, the respiratory system being exposed to hostile or poisonous conditions, air supplies to the human body in outer space or deep-sea diving, fear, anticipation, etc. The A-side of this tape is almost exclusively composed of this primal element. It’s a dense, constant loop that slowly morphs over the course of the entire side. Hypnotic approaches a description of the overall effect on the listener. I tried to listen to this while driving through the countryside of Maine and had to pull the tape out of the stereo. The internal environments were overwhelming my external experience of the changing pastoral landscape.

Where “The Pleasure Tunnel” slowly builds upon itself, “The Temple of Paradise” is full of twisted passageways and abrupt turns. Creeping, cold, vaporous drones emanate from the depths of the subconscious, worked into a cut-up style the brings to mind early works ofNurse with Wound. Only halfway through this seemingly endless hallway do we hear Bryan Lewis Saunders’ twin stereo vocals begin to describe this fractured dreamscape. Finally, there’s the startling payoff of white-hot harsh frequencies evaporating the memory of dreamstate.

The liner notes for this collaboration are illuminating and thought-provoking; seldom is a working process explained in such detail. Rather than robbing the mystery from the work, it operates on a curatorial level of providing a specific context and deeper appreciation for the circumstances contributing to such a superb end product. Here’s an excerpt:

“One time while I was ill with a severe lung infection I had extremely similar dreams on two consecutive nights. Both nights I entered the most vibrant and wonderful places ever created but they were now totally vacant, desolate, voids of despair and in ruin and disrepair. Amazingly, the recordings I made of them were almost equal in length as well as being extremely similar in sound quality. Over the course of 2 nights my subconscious had become a reflection of my phlegm and I was drowning in it.”—Bryan Lewis Saunders

Saturday, October 10, 2015

I did a guest podcast for a series in Greece. Normally the show is called "Notes From Chaos", and I had the pleasure of being the first of a series of guests; "Guests from Chaos". The theme is industrial, but rooted in the experimental, cerebral qualities that began with the movement. Otomo Hava, the host, has a knack for incorporating the raw and abrasive with the particularly ratty compositional avante-garde and classical elements.

Review on Memory Wave Transmissions, here is the summation...Falling Tower, Terrible Fountain is a solid release, and Arvo Zylo has proven time and again that his noise is something much deeper than the simple twist and turn of knobs. This tape is like a void, easily sucking the listener into the whir of noise aberrations, and one should attempt to find this tape by contacting punkferret138 AT yahoo.com (since Side of the Sun doesn’t really have a web presence).

Illusion of Safety reviewed at Heathen Harvest.Now I will say first, that I think this is one of IOS's best albums. I know I'm biased, but while the writer overall fails to latch onto, it find it to be one of the most engrossing sonic adventures I've heard. There is a difference between being able to find meaning in something and being able to find substance. This is a surrealistic journey, a damn near cyber punk outing in digesting the whole, that brings up different subtleties in every listen. Never the less, I respect this writer's effort. ....One can only guess at the reasoning behind this down-turn in productivity outside of the obvious, but it’s clear from the onset of Surrender that Burke’s will to craft marvelously complex experimental compositions from a variety of sources is still as intact and impressive as it ever was. Virtually any element that you’ve ever heard in experimental music can be found interwoven with other assorted, sometimes seemingly incompatible sounds: mathematical digital beats, distant pipe-organ dirges, feedback loops, squalling disharmonious harsh noise, engulfing bass-end drones, manic shifts in atmosphere and volume, a vast assortment of samples and field recordings, and fragmented electro-acoustic general weirdness. Impressive in its scope and intricacy, Surrender—at face-value—is an experimental sonic-sculptor’s dream; it is an epic journey through all manner of digital visions and vivid hallucinations, wherein we are led everywhere from the bleak and barren cut-up introduction of “We Numb” as it develops into an EBM-meets-free-jazz freak-out passage to the raging angelic inferno of synthetic choir layers in “Popular Delusions.”VELCRO BISMOL by ARVO ZYLO / DENTAL WORKMoving on, "Velcro Bismol" by Arvo Zylo & Dental Work is now on Bandcamp, with a reminder that one can purchase prints of the cover art in numerous sizes and shapes.

I am working almost entirely with a wide-ranging slew of sounds by Dental Work, from demented disco to coke snorting, all kinds of madness. The result is constantly compared to Nurse with Wound, and at other times, extremely harsh noise. Deep bass medleys, HI SPEED CUT UPS, screwed dirge, splish splash tape loops. I did the cover art, and it was part of a series of collages I did for an art exhibition of the same name. All art is from collaged women's magazines.

credits

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Bryan Lewis Saunders is a creative juggernaut. He's probably best known for his art book of daily self-portraits on various different mind-altering drugs, if not his huge collection of found photography, his aptitude for surrealistic visual art glossolalia and his "Stand Up Tragedy" Performance Art. He recorded 2 different dreams that took place at the same dream location. He has done dream recordings hundreds of times, including his multi-volume audio book "The Confessor". This was the only time he returned to the same location in his dream, so he put the two audio recordings together, because they also happened to have damn near the same length. Saunders had a severe lung infection at the time, so it's doubly weezy. I did what I could to honor this magical place "The Pleasure Tunnel / The Temple of Paradise", including recording myself reading the transcripts upon waking, and making a soundtrack to it. It comes on pro cassette with 2 colors on clear no liner shells, a full color, double sided 5 panel J card with dream transcript, liner notes from each artist, and is a c40 or so on Chrome tapes. Mastered by Zach Adams. At this time there are 4 copies remaining.

In the process of digifying things that are still in print since the "off-the-grid" money order/xerox newsletter period for the label, there will be more from Illusion of Safety and WILT, among others, with bonus tracks and other items.

About Me

BIO

SHORT:

Active since 2000. Experimental sound structures wavering around industrial noise territory, often characterized by excessive layering of similar direct sources/samples, or constant integration of a YAMAHA RM1X Sequencer.

Recent work has been more performative and based on mic'ed objects, including group ensembles, primal / conceptual vocal work, and soundtrack-oriented premises.

LONG:

Arvo Zylo has been making experimental music that wavers around but is undeniably anchored in the vein of industrial noise, since the year 2000. He works under his own name as well as under the collaborative umbrella moniker "Blood Rhythms".

Zylo started out having no previous knowledge about experimental music, with a primitive sequencer, where he'd destroy presets and cause malfunctions as a primary source of compositional inspiration. His work has evolved to fetishize extreme layering, repetition, raw material action, feedback, human/animal/onomatopoeia sounds, and naturally abrasive elements without the use of effects pedals.

Arvo Zylo has toured the midwest numerous times, as well as being featured at Denver Noise Fest four times, Dead Audio Fest in Houston (2010), St. Louis Fest (2010), Heavy Focus (Minneapolis, 2010), St. Petersburg Noise Fest 2013, Indiana Noise Fest 2013 and 2014. Radio stations he's been interviewed or featured on include WFMU (New Jersey), WZRD (Chicago), WCSB (Cleveland), and WKCR (New York).

In terms of recorded output, both under his own name and under the Blood Rhythms project, he has done split releases with GX Jupitter-Larsen, Le Scrambled Debutante, TOMB, and Death Factory. Some releases have been produced by such outfits as Locrian's private label Land of Decay, Banned Productions headed by AMK, Phage Tapes, Spleencoffin, OUT-OF-BODY RECORDS (headed by Rob of Terminator 2 and FILTH), and others. A handful of collaborators that Zylo has been involved with include Daniel Burke (Illusion of Safety), renowned collage artist Christopher Ilth (ex Daily Void), German Dadaists Kommissar Hjuler und Mama Baer, "avant-industrial gospel" band ONO, and industrial noise veteran Christopher Turner (Nookleptia).

Blood Rhythms has featured either live or recorded contributions from Bruce Lamont (Corrections House, Bloodiest, Yakuza), Ben Billington (Tiger Hatchery, Quicksails), Mike Weis (Zelienople), Alejandro Morales (Piss Piss Piss Moan Moan Moan, RUNNING), Clayton Counts (Bull of Heaven, the Beachles), the aforementioned GX Jupitter-Larsen (the Haters), Elizabeth Floersch (Fatale), and members of the entire band ONO, to be short.

Previous group incarnations started off being based around the concept of playing layers of live brass instruments in a drone fashion with as many live players as possible, but it evolved to incorporate junk metal, prepared guitar, tape loops, power tools, and synthesizers.

People have remarked that Zylo's releases are always very different, but his most representative solo release is "333". There are now over 700 copies in existence, and it took 6 years for him to complete it.

Some select quotes about "333":

"...this recording feels like it had to be made, and it transcends its limited equipment resources as if the music couldn't be stopped..."

"....Arvo Zylo's work is often the product of literal years of toil, the potent result of countless hours refining, perfecting, and focusing wild energies. Projects like his "333" and "Assembly" feel more like they've been finished in a metal refinery than a mastering house, their labyrinthine vertical layers chosen and fixed in place with firm force."

"First, I was really focused on the intensely constructed sequenced structure - then, today, I was struck by the more organic components that seem to grow around the more rigid parts. It is an intense listen, for sure. "

Mark Solotroff (Bloodyminded, Anatomy of Habit, Intrinsic Action)

"A technicolor nightmare..." "...A cyber punk thrill ride" "...totally assaulting music without actually relinquishing the conventional rules of what music should be."

Having been active in live venues for experimental music and noise since 2003, Zylo at one time ran or co hosted two separate weekly experimental showcases, aside from several well received one-off events and warehouse parties. He's been writing on the subject of sound art periodically since around 2006, having written for Roctober, Special Interests, Heathen Harvest, WFMU's Beware of the Blog, Chicago's NewCity, and others. Arvo's "Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show", which ran for 7 years on WLUW, has afforded him the rare opportunities to interview Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus), and several other luminous characters of widely varying backgrounds.

"NO PART OF IT" is a label that kicked off in 2008 with a 7 inch compilation (titled "Trunculence") of 100 locked grooves by 55 artists. Some of those artists were Nurse With Wound, Crash Worship, Helios Creed, Black Leather Jesus, Anakrid, dave phillips, and Sudden Infant.

Aside from personal releases, the label has released a CD compilation celebrating the 4th anniversary of Arvo's radio program (active on WLUW 2007-2014), The Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show. Before that, Zylo was a regular clandestine DJ at WZRD between 2004 and 2007, and continues to make irregular appearances there. "Delirious Music For Delirious People" included songs by Controlled Bleeding, Zola Jesus, Pharmakon, Gary Wilson, Haunted George, Big City Orchestra, Rancid Hell Spawn, WOLD, and more within its 23 tracks.

NO PART OF IT went "off-the-grid" for a couple of years, (there are some releases that sold out without any representation on the internet, we are pleased to say) selling only by xerox newsletters and money orders, but is now back on "the digital scene". (Bandcamp)

On September 9th, 2011, Arvo Fingers and WLUW celebrated the 4th Anniversary of the Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show as well as the release of the first volume of "Delirious Music For Delirious People", a compilation featuring Jarboe, Controlled Bleeding, Zola Jesus, Boyd Rice and Friends, Gary Wilson, BeNe GeSSeRiT, Big City Orchestra, Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet, and others.